by Mary Lou Larkin
February 11, 2010
I couldn't sleep at all last night after seeing the destruction of downtown Port-au-Prince and thousands of tents everywhere I looked. Where do the people use the bathroom? Where will they wash up? The tents All touch each other. There is barely anywhere to walk. There is dust from concrete that people are breaking up with any thing they can find which fills the air. The only things not destroyed are the statues of Toussant, Dessalines, and the Maron, the heroes of Haiti. It is heartbreaking for me. The tents actually abut the pedestals of the statues. When you look up the mountain behind the sagging and tilted palace, the homes that were once there are all fallen on top of one another.
The university nursing school completely collapsed and many died there. This country depends on good nurses who do so much organizing of public health campaigns. Another incalculable loss.
As we walk through the dust and destruction I see three boys with kites made from discarded pieces of plastic and they are smiling, running and laughing. I see a woman scrubbing a child with a tiny bowl of water. Life will go on and my respect for the people of Haiti can never be expressed in mere words. I have had visits at the guest house of Haitian friends who come simply to say hello and to talk and to see how we are doing. They tell what happened to them, their homes and their families.
We laugh and smile and connect, but in Haiti there is little small talk. Life is too intense.
Mary Lou
Showing posts with label port-au-prince. Show all posts
Showing posts with label port-au-prince. Show all posts
Thursday, February 11, 2010
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
Treating Patients in Port au Prince
by Megan Cavanaugh
February 10th
Woke up to the Baptist preacher at 5 am again- fire and evil and sin he yells. Off on our bumpy trip to back to the school we see about 45 patients from 9-1pm. One of my first patients is a thin young man, he comes in drenched in sweat, holding his head, he moans quielty in pain when he takes the seat. I barely have to ask him what is wrong. He is the face of malaria here. He tells me he has had a fever on and off for the last three days and now his head hurts terribly, he feels weak, can barely stand and he even vomited his water he walked so far to get this morning. His temperature is temperature is 107, his heart rate 120, his respiration 24, his blood pressure low. His lungs are clear, his heart strong, but FAST. I give him 1,000 mgs of Tylenol and 600 mg of Chlorquine. I explain with Papito that this should help with his fever and headache quickly but that the malaria takes longer to recover from. I tell him he is SO dehydrated and I am worried for him. He rests in the shade while I see more patients - a broken foot from a woman who was inside her house when the quake struck, a painful perforated ear drum with discharge- she says her ear "popped" during the noise of the quake.
We treat with all the right mediations and supplies because of our friends and family and people who donate make that a possibility. I check on the man with malaria. His temperature is down to 100.6 in just 45 minutes. He tells me his head still hurts. We give him oral rehydration packets and explain he can take more Tylenol tonight but that he needs to DRINK clean water. We explain how to take the rest of the malaria medication and he has friends help him home. I pray he will be all right, and I worry about him the rest of the day.
I'm not trying to be dramatic, I really think we saved his life simply by being here with the right medications. I'm here and I get the gratification of witnessing that but it takes about a hundred peaople back at home to make that happen. People who donate, help with fundraisers, collect and pack medication bags, coordinate flights and finances, drive us around the tricky streets of PAP, pick us up from the airport and make sure we are safe and fed while we are here. We have such an amazing network of support. We work till 1 pm and the only people left are those with problems we don't have the correct medications for. Discouraging, but I promise to return and have a women's health day.
I think we did good today I say to Papito and he smiles and tells me: You and I are going to kill malaria! And we laugh both understanding that we made a small dent today but we are taking on an endemic disease.
We go by our tap tap down town to Port au Prince. Many have tried to explain the destruction and devestation and failed. I will fail too, so I won't even try. I got close trying to take pictures and a strange Haitian man on a bicycle comes to me "no, no, no!" he yells at me. I step back, unsure if I have offended him and Abner wisks me away explaining the man is concerned for my safety- I have been standing underneath a huge sheet of concrete that is hanging precariously by a few wires. During the next tremor it will surely fall.
Devestation, destruction, the living conditions in the newly erected tent city around the collapsed national palace are unimaginable. But I have often thought this when I see parts of the slum of Cite Soleil. The smell of rotting produce composting in the gutter along with sewage and what else I can not imagine. It is a horrible smell, and people are LIVING here. I will go home and they will LIVE here. No bathrooms, no privacy, no comfortable place to lie down when you are sick or tired. They LIVE here.
We walk over to the statue of the slave that was freed, a beautiful sculpture that shows the strength and history of Haiti. Tents are all around it, close as they can be. We stare. A tiny little girl, her hair woven in tight brades, about the age of 6 is peering at me. She has a pink sundress on and no shoes, in the middle of all this sewage and squalor she like hundreds of thousands of children here have no shoes. She approaches me and grabs my hand, squeezing tightly, a million watt smiles stares up at me, her eyes and her smile so bright against the dark, smooth skin. I smile at her, genuine and touched that she has taken my hand. Haitian children frequently do this, they love to hold your hand, and its one of the thousands of reasons I have become a haitiphile, in love with it all.
But then she did something I've never had a child do before- she kissed the tips of my fingers. I don't know why she did it but I melted. I automatically take her chin in my hand and I tell her in Kreyol that she is beautiful. If its possible I get an even bigger smile in return.
I want to tell her so much more- to tell her that she is smart, and resilient, brave and kind and that she has a good future because of all that. That God does love her, and that he only loves and forgives, never punishes. I hope that she does have someone in her life who tells her all that, tells her everyday. Because she needs that, and she deserves that, after all she has survived and the fact that she is living in inhumane conditions and likely always wondering if she will eat today- she can still smile and take a stranger by the hand and show love. It's time for us to go back to Walls so I wave goodbye. She let's go of my hand and actually, for real, skips away down the grimy street off into the tent city.
Children everywhere amaze me. I wonder if that little girl knows what an awesome memory she just gave me, how bright and hopeful, and how blessed I feel to have met her. I don't know exactly how, but some tiny peice of me softens and changes because of it. Just human kindess.
Plannings, meetings, organizing the artwork we have had a friend, Jaqcui Labrom gather for us so we can sell it at a fundraiser. Coordinating a food shipment with Joan back in the US so the children of Abner's school can still eat, until some small part of a normal life returns in a few weeks. We talk about shipping costs, containers and ports underneath our outdoor living room by the light of the lantern. We repack and reorganize medication bags.
I call my friend Rachael in the US who is got her grad degree in art thearpy and is an emotionally wise soul. I tell her I have brought drawing paper and colored pencils for the children and I want to give them a therapeutic activitiy to help heal from the quake- or at least encourage a dialogue. Seeing a three store building split in half and turned on its side- I can not imagine how frightening that was, especially as a child. Your whole world actually falling down around you. Rachael advises me and Abner. Adner and I talk about how he will do the activity at his school and he tells me he will talk with them about HOPE and it will tie in nicely with our theme of creaing a wall to of pictures to metaphorically show how we can all together rebuild Haiti. The children will draw pictures of what they dream of when they think of rebuilding their school, homes, lives. Sherman has provided Abner with a published manual on how to talk about traumatic incidents with people, and Abner is going to have a meeting with the parents of school students so they can feel safe to discuss a subject that they are still frightened to talk about.
Time for bed, people singing, more people protesting somewhere far way, just light chanting. It's dying down now. Just the usual hum hum of the generator, my friends chatting in Kreyol, and the crickets trying to dround out the dogs barking.
Bon nuit
February 10th
Woke up to the Baptist preacher at 5 am again- fire and evil and sin he yells. Off on our bumpy trip to back to the school we see about 45 patients from 9-1pm. One of my first patients is a thin young man, he comes in drenched in sweat, holding his head, he moans quielty in pain when he takes the seat. I barely have to ask him what is wrong. He is the face of malaria here. He tells me he has had a fever on and off for the last three days and now his head hurts terribly, he feels weak, can barely stand and he even vomited his water he walked so far to get this morning. His temperature is temperature is 107, his heart rate 120, his respiration 24, his blood pressure low. His lungs are clear, his heart strong, but FAST. I give him 1,000 mgs of Tylenol and 600 mg of Chlorquine. I explain with Papito that this should help with his fever and headache quickly but that the malaria takes longer to recover from. I tell him he is SO dehydrated and I am worried for him. He rests in the shade while I see more patients - a broken foot from a woman who was inside her house when the quake struck, a painful perforated ear drum with discharge- she says her ear "popped" during the noise of the quake.
We treat with all the right mediations and supplies because of our friends and family and people who donate make that a possibility. I check on the man with malaria. His temperature is down to 100.6 in just 45 minutes. He tells me his head still hurts. We give him oral rehydration packets and explain he can take more Tylenol tonight but that he needs to DRINK clean water. We explain how to take the rest of the malaria medication and he has friends help him home. I pray he will be all right, and I worry about him the rest of the day.
I'm not trying to be dramatic, I really think we saved his life simply by being here with the right medications. I'm here and I get the gratification of witnessing that but it takes about a hundred peaople back at home to make that happen. People who donate, help with fundraisers, collect and pack medication bags, coordinate flights and finances, drive us around the tricky streets of PAP, pick us up from the airport and make sure we are safe and fed while we are here. We have such an amazing network of support. We work till 1 pm and the only people left are those with problems we don't have the correct medications for. Discouraging, but I promise to return and have a women's health day.
I think we did good today I say to Papito and he smiles and tells me: You and I are going to kill malaria! And we laugh both understanding that we made a small dent today but we are taking on an endemic disease.
We go by our tap tap down town to Port au Prince. Many have tried to explain the destruction and devestation and failed. I will fail too, so I won't even try. I got close trying to take pictures and a strange Haitian man on a bicycle comes to me "no, no, no!" he yells at me. I step back, unsure if I have offended him and Abner wisks me away explaining the man is concerned for my safety- I have been standing underneath a huge sheet of concrete that is hanging precariously by a few wires. During the next tremor it will surely fall.
Devestation, destruction, the living conditions in the newly erected tent city around the collapsed national palace are unimaginable. But I have often thought this when I see parts of the slum of Cite Soleil. The smell of rotting produce composting in the gutter along with sewage and what else I can not imagine. It is a horrible smell, and people are LIVING here. I will go home and they will LIVE here. No bathrooms, no privacy, no comfortable place to lie down when you are sick or tired. They LIVE here.
We walk over to the statue of the slave that was freed, a beautiful sculpture that shows the strength and history of Haiti. Tents are all around it, close as they can be. We stare. A tiny little girl, her hair woven in tight brades, about the age of 6 is peering at me. She has a pink sundress on and no shoes, in the middle of all this sewage and squalor she like hundreds of thousands of children here have no shoes. She approaches me and grabs my hand, squeezing tightly, a million watt smiles stares up at me, her eyes and her smile so bright against the dark, smooth skin. I smile at her, genuine and touched that she has taken my hand. Haitian children frequently do this, they love to hold your hand, and its one of the thousands of reasons I have become a haitiphile, in love with it all.
But then she did something I've never had a child do before- she kissed the tips of my fingers. I don't know why she did it but I melted. I automatically take her chin in my hand and I tell her in Kreyol that she is beautiful. If its possible I get an even bigger smile in return.
I want to tell her so much more- to tell her that she is smart, and resilient, brave and kind and that she has a good future because of all that. That God does love her, and that he only loves and forgives, never punishes. I hope that she does have someone in her life who tells her all that, tells her everyday. Because she needs that, and she deserves that, after all she has survived and the fact that she is living in inhumane conditions and likely always wondering if she will eat today- she can still smile and take a stranger by the hand and show love. It's time for us to go back to Walls so I wave goodbye. She let's go of my hand and actually, for real, skips away down the grimy street off into the tent city.
Children everywhere amaze me. I wonder if that little girl knows what an awesome memory she just gave me, how bright and hopeful, and how blessed I feel to have met her. I don't know exactly how, but some tiny peice of me softens and changes because of it. Just human kindess.
Plannings, meetings, organizing the artwork we have had a friend, Jaqcui Labrom gather for us so we can sell it at a fundraiser. Coordinating a food shipment with Joan back in the US so the children of Abner's school can still eat, until some small part of a normal life returns in a few weeks. We talk about shipping costs, containers and ports underneath our outdoor living room by the light of the lantern. We repack and reorganize medication bags.
I call my friend Rachael in the US who is got her grad degree in art thearpy and is an emotionally wise soul. I tell her I have brought drawing paper and colored pencils for the children and I want to give them a therapeutic activitiy to help heal from the quake- or at least encourage a dialogue. Seeing a three store building split in half and turned on its side- I can not imagine how frightening that was, especially as a child. Your whole world actually falling down around you. Rachael advises me and Abner. Adner and I talk about how he will do the activity at his school and he tells me he will talk with them about HOPE and it will tie in nicely with our theme of creaing a wall to of pictures to metaphorically show how we can all together rebuild Haiti. The children will draw pictures of what they dream of when they think of rebuilding their school, homes, lives. Sherman has provided Abner with a published manual on how to talk about traumatic incidents with people, and Abner is going to have a meeting with the parents of school students so they can feel safe to discuss a subject that they are still frightened to talk about.
Time for bed, people singing, more people protesting somewhere far way, just light chanting. It's dying down now. Just the usual hum hum of the generator, my friends chatting in Kreyol, and the crickets trying to dround out the dogs barking.
Bon nuit
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
First Day in Working in Port au Prince
by Jim Morgan
February 9th 2010
Family and friends,
First day working in Haiti. What can I say but how moving an experience it was. The drive through the city with its crowded conditions and degree of poverty is beyond imagination or what a camera can capture. You need to see it, hear it, and smell it (I say this not because it was offensive, but just the gas fumes, dust, charcoal burning on streets, and dust).
When we arrived at school where we were to have our first clinic, its destruction was very apparent. Abner had everything arranged for use of 2 concrete rooms and we hung tarps for extra shade for the patients. Then the children just came out of nowhere. Some with parents, some not. I was anxious at first, not about catching anything, but realizing I might be seeing things I had never seen before. I was correct when my second patient had malaria as did one of Megan. What a joyous feeling when we had Chloroquine to Rx both of them. One child may have had TB. Wound and skin infections.
Heart arrythmias. But most of all, lots of gastroentestinal illness and URIs we see everyday. Difference, they don't have a clean home (if one at all) to go back too. Always smiling, they left with saying "mesi very much" even if we did nothing more than tell them they were going to be OK. Back at base camp. Spaghetti and a cold beer never tasted so good. Listening to Creole choir in night behind me so I'll say bon yuit (good night). Mesi for everyone's thoughts, support, and prayers.
-Jim
February 9th 2010
Family and friends,
First day working in Haiti. What can I say but how moving an experience it was. The drive through the city with its crowded conditions and degree of poverty is beyond imagination or what a camera can capture. You need to see it, hear it, and smell it (I say this not because it was offensive, but just the gas fumes, dust, charcoal burning on streets, and dust).
When we arrived at school where we were to have our first clinic, its destruction was very apparent. Abner had everything arranged for use of 2 concrete rooms and we hung tarps for extra shade for the patients. Then the children just came out of nowhere. Some with parents, some not. I was anxious at first, not about catching anything, but realizing I might be seeing things I had never seen before. I was correct when my second patient had malaria as did one of Megan. What a joyous feeling when we had Chloroquine to Rx both of them. One child may have had TB. Wound and skin infections.
Heart arrythmias. But most of all, lots of gastroentestinal illness and URIs we see everyday. Difference, they don't have a clean home (if one at all) to go back too. Always smiling, they left with saying "mesi very much" even if we did nothing more than tell them they were going to be OK. Back at base camp. Spaghetti and a cold beer never tasted so good. Listening to Creole choir in night behind me so I'll say bon yuit (good night). Mesi for everyone's thoughts, support, and prayers.
-Jim
On to Port au Prince
by Megan Cavanaugh
This is the building we usually sleep in at the guest house of Walls, a huge pile of twisted metal and crumbs of concrete.
More tents at Walls.
We spent the rest of last night sorting an resorting our bags of medication and supplies in Papito's and Rhodie's apartment, trying to predict what we would see and how much. Then we all realized how exhausted we were, showered and slept. Up early and in a taxi with all our baggage to the bus depot. Papito picked up the tickets we reserved. Chaos and jostling to get bags on board.
Mary Lou and I sat next to the bathroom. I promised not to complain at all on this trip so I will just reiterate- on a 7 hour bus trip with 50 people we sat next to the bathroom. But really the ride was easy and smooth compared to what I had mentally prepared myself for. But if you are imagining a highway like we have at home... This is narrow roads, sharp turns, massive pot holes, many quick stops and oddly- many many speed bumps. People sit by the speed bumps trying to sell various goods because they realize that people will have to slow down and check out the goods as they go by.
My first trip through Dominican customs, at the southern border, Jimani, was easy enough. Thank goodness for Papito who is a pro and trilingual. We enter the city through cois de bouquet, which I am misspelling. We comment how normal everything looks. I am trying to prepare myself.
And then my jaw drops at the amazing cracks through solid concrete buildings and homes where the front of the house simply slid off. We drive by the airport- on one side there are tents of various shapes and sizes, some makeshift homes, as far as I can see. We get to the rotary of the aiport and there are masses of people. We all know this is one of the spots the world food program is delivering aid so the huge crowds make sense. I see the huge new us embassy as we step off the bus into the hot hot sun. Dirt parking lot, familiar smells of port au prince- charcoal and sea air and diesel and something new I can't place but makes me a little sad, as if it's a metaphor for the sad change that's occured here.
We try to say hi at the us embassy and check in but the marines wave us away with a smile and just tell us its not necessary- but that if we have trouble to contact them because they are there. One of them in his dark glasses makes me promise we arent going to try to sneak any kids across the border while here. I laugh and say no, what a sad mess that situation is. Veniel, the manager at Walls guest house where we are staying in Port au Prince, has sent a big truck to pick us up. A stranger approaches and just asks : "Walls?" and we all smile and say "wi!" and start loading up the truck . More collapsed homes and buildings. Some perfectly fine, such a sharp contrast.
People tell us about the earthquake-it was not the ground shaking left to right as you would imagine. It was the ground moving up and down- almost like huge waves rolling underneath. Someone says that at one point a small tree outside was thrown as high in the air as an electric pole. I can't imagine it, but we begin to see the damage everywhere. Help me spray painted on walls, we need aid written on cardboard. Orange x's mark where rescue teams went through. We arrive at walls, three beeps and the armed guard opens the steel gate as always.
I am in shock, my heart jarred by the enormous pile of rubble that stands in the place of the huge building that normally houses us and the many guests that stay- from other ngo's or international couples working to adopt a child . I hike up the huge pile of rubble and look down through one of the sheets of concrete and see the tables we all usually eat at, communal style. They are flattened onto the ground. I can't even recognize anything else. 5 people died here. Two staff and three guests. They have already dug out the bodies. I think about how many times I've slept peacefully in the building that collapased. Destroyed, totally.
But Veniel is amazing and resourceful and one of the buildings was spared, though not safe to sleep in. No one sleeps inside still, everyone sleeps outside, in the street or in their yards. We put up our tents. We are happy and surprised that there is running water and fairly constant electricity, a miracle even pre-quake in Haiti. We are surprised we are the only foreigners staying here, except for a single woman working on education in Cite Soleil. We chat, I ask her about what she has seen.
Food and water are still hard to get- especially for women with small children and the elderly who cant fight for it. Calls and emails go out to home- we are all here and safe. We pack ourselves into the back of a tap tap and travel 20 minutes to a fast food joint. It is bright and clean and full of people and food. It is surreal to see considering what is on either side of it. We eat burgers and fries- a new experience to me in Haiti. We don't linger as Abner points out- we should not hang out in buildings when there are still tremors occuring. I'd momentarily forgotten.
Back to Walls. We have a meeting by the light of our mini battery powered lantern to try to plan tomorrows clinic but come to the conclusion that it is impossible to plan more than a few hours ahead. This is Haiti after all. Go with the flow. I crawl into my tent ready to sleep but first I glance around to make sure there is nothing that might fall on me in the middle of the night, should an aftershock occur. The electricity has shut off. The generator hums. Tons of dogs barking. More to come. Gotta sleep. Long day working tomorrow. Thanks for reading. -Megan
Friday, February 5, 2010
Welcome!
Welcome to our new blog by Haiti Marycare. Because we know many people are interested in what is going on in Haiti and would like to keep up with the progress of our relief efforts, we have created this blog to provide more up to date information.
This weekend, February 7, a team of medical professionals associated with Haiti Marycare will travel to Haiti to assist in the relief. The team will travel through the Dominican Republic, to Port-au-Prince and run a medical clinic there for a few days before moving north towards Cap Haitien and Jacquesyl. We will update the blog to keep you informed of their experiences as they travel.
Here is our situation to date in Port-au-Prince:
Today we have received a generous grant from the Greenwich World Hunger Association to repair the school in La Plaine, a slum area of Port-au-Prince. Abner Romelus, the school director will take the lead in coordinating the repair efforts and it is our hope that once repaired, the school will provide shelter to the 250 students, their parents and the school staff that are now homeless due to the earthquake. Currently, these people are all staying in a large field, with no shelter, no sanitation, and no supplies of any kind and they have yet to receive any aid from relief workers in the capital.
This weekend, February 7, a team of medical professionals associated with Haiti Marycare will travel to Haiti to assist in the relief. The team will travel through the Dominican Republic, to Port-au-Prince and run a medical clinic there for a few days before moving north towards Cap Haitien and Jacquesyl. We will update the blog to keep you informed of their experiences as they travel.
Here is our situation to date in Port-au-Prince:
Today we have received a generous grant from the Greenwich World Hunger Association to repair the school in La Plaine, a slum area of Port-au-Prince. Abner Romelus, the school director will take the lead in coordinating the repair efforts and it is our hope that once repaired, the school will provide shelter to the 250 students, their parents and the school staff that are now homeless due to the earthquake. Currently, these people are all staying in a large field, with no shelter, no sanitation, and no supplies of any kind and they have yet to receive any aid from relief workers in the capital.
Thanks to your generous donations, we have been able to send enough money to repair the well located on the school grounds. This well, powered by a hand pump rather than electricity, now provides up to 1,000 buckets of water per day. Haiti Marycare has also been been able to send Abner money to purchase rice and beans for the children. As the team from the US travels down to Port-au-Prince in the next few days, carrying hundreds of pounds of medical supplies by hand, it is our hope we can best determine how to provide further relief both now and in the difficult times still to come.
Please keep us in your hearts and prayers.
bove is a picture of the school children, Abner Romelus and the outside of the school, prior to the earthquake.
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